Juicy Adelaide wicket will open India Test series
THE opening salvos of the Border-Gavaskar series will be delivered on a thick mat of green Adelaide grass.
Damian Hough is sticking with the winning method that drew universal praise during the three day-night Tests in Adelaide.
The Adelaide Oval curator will leave grass on the wicket for Australia’s first home Test since the ball tampering fiasco in South Africa.
In Adelaide’s three day- night Tests from 2015-17, Hough cut the pitch high to cushion the fragile pink ball.
That worked so well – all three Tests delivered results as batsmen struggled to counter the moving ball – that Hough is loath to fix something that’s not broken.
Asked what he was doing differently for Adelaide’s first day Test since Australia beat India by 48 runs in an unforgettable match four seasons ago, Hough replied: “Nothing.”
“We won’t do anything differently,” he told News Corp Australia. “The preparation will be the same.
“The only difference is we get the covers off earlier and we start earlier.”
Preparing a greentop for a day Test sounds like a seismic change but Hough says it’s nothing of the kind; he’s been doing it in the Sheffield Shield for several seasons now.
It is an admission that the unforgiving drop-in pitches – introduced in 2013 ahead of the AFL moving in the following year – don’t break up like the old Adelaide strips.
When the Indians were last here in 2014/15, Hough tried to roll out a wearing pitch that would break up and turn as the match progressed.
The match might have been a classic – Nathan Lyon’s seven second-innings wickets delivered the hosts a narrow win – but the pitch was unyielding.
“That one for me was one of my most special Tests,” Hough said.
“It’s probably got something to do with the bloke who spun us to victory. (Lyon used to work with Hough on the Adelaide ground staff).
“We were still able to get an exciting Test match and a good contest between bat and ball. It was a really good Test but it just didn’t quite feel right.”
Since then every Adelaide Test has been played with a pink ball on a green track – and Hough is sticking with the latter in the absence of the former.
“We do the same preparation for red-ball cricket and pink-ball cricket at Shield level,” he said.